Highlighting the recent appointments of Samantha Power as the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and Susan Rice as the White House national security adviser, Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, writes in the Huffington Post’s “Global Motherhood” blog, “These women assume their new…

“For decades, U.S. aid has fed millions overseas but the policy is stuck in a time warp and has failed to keep up with 21st-century innovations and smarter practices,” Neal Keny-Guyer, CEO of Mercy Corps, writes in a Seattle Times opinion piece. “With common-sense modifications, U.S. food assistance could reach…

In the Center for Global Development’s (CGD) “Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance Blog,” Kate Almquist Knopf, a visiting policy fellow at CGD, states, “The FY14 State and Foreign Operations Appropriations bill passed out of the House Appropriations Committee last week is a stinging reminder of the low esteem in which many…

The most recent issue of The Lancet is available online. The issue includes, among other articles, an editorial examining the global threat of invasive meningococcal disease — or meningitis B — as well as a commentary and a paper examining maternal and child nutrition in low- and middle-income countries (8/3).

“As a midwife of more than fifty years and founder of my country’s first maternity hospital, I have seen how easily joy can turn to grief and tragedy when expecting mothers lack access to the expert medical care the Duchess of Cambridge received,” Edna Adan Ismail, founder and director of…

Noting the observance of World Breastfeeding Week from August 1 to 7, Arun Gupta, co-founder and central coordinator of the Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India, provides statistics about breastfeeding globally, discusses the health benefits for newborns and examines a lack of international funding for breastfeeding initiatives in a Devex opinion…

“Researchers, donors, governments and other key stakeholders cannot ignore the challenges of conducting research in nations experiencing crises, and should not shy away from these countries,” Samba Sow, director general of the Center for Vaccine Development in Mali, a collaborative enterprise between Mali’s Ministry of Health and the University of…

In an Atlantic editorial, global health editor Olga Khazan examines USAID’s maternal and child health efforts abroad, noting the agency’s announcement of the award finalists for its “Saving Lives at Birth” initiative on Wednesday. “The agency has been working on maternal health since 1989, but now, USAID has partnered with…

“After rising threefold during the first decade of the 21st century, development assistance for health has plateaued,” Anurag Mairal, the global program leader for technology solutions at PATH, writes in The Guardian’s “Global Development Professionals Network” blog. “To further reduce health inequities, we need new approaches that make the most…

In a post in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists” blog, Hamid Jafari, director of global polio eradication and research at the WHO, reflects on global polio eradication efforts, noting “[a]n editorial in the Washington Post on Monday and a recent NPR piece both draw attention to one…